Railroad-ticket



l RAILROAD TICKET.

APPLICATION FILED MAR. 26, 1918l Patented May 25, 1920.

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tknnu RAILROAD-TICKET.

Specification of Letters Patent.

Patented May 25, 1920.

Application led March 26, 1918. Serial No. 224,766.

To all whom t may concern:

Be it known that We, GLENN A. SMILEY and ORVALL SMILEY, citizens of the United States, residing, respectively, at Fort Wayne, in the county of Allen and State of Indiana, and at Indianapolis, in the county of Marion and State of Indiana, have invented-certai'nne'w and useful Improvements in Railroad-Tickets, of which the following is a specification.

Our invention relates to railroad tickets having means for positively identifying the original purchaser of the ticket, and it consists in the combinations, constructions and arrangements herein described and claimed.

An object of our invention is to provide a railroad ticket having a stub, with means on the body ortion of the ticket and also on the stub, or indicating the day of the month and the year when the ticket was purchased, and for positively identifying the original purchaser.

A further object of our invention is to provide simple means whereby the thumb or linger print of the original purchaser may be impressed partly on the body portion of the ticket and partly on the stub, on a line joining the two, so that when the stub is detached along this line, the parts may be subsequently matched and the identity of the purchaser positively established.

Other objects and advantages will appear in the following specification, and the novel features of the invention will be particularly pointed out in the appended claims.

Our invention is illustrated in the accompanying drawings forming part of this application, in which- Figure 1 is a face view of the ticket; and

Fig. 2 is a view of the reverse side of the ticket.

In carrying out our invention we provide a rectangular strip, comprising a body portionl and a stub portion 2. The line 3 which separates the body portion from the stub is preferably scored, perforated, or otherwise weakened so that the stub may be easily folded over on the body portion and also that it may be easily detached therefrom.

On either side of the line 3 and preferably bounded by lines 4, on the reverse side of the ticket (see Fig. 2) is an arca 5, which is provided with a coating capable of receiving and retaining a thumb or finger print.

This coating may be prepared in any suitable manner, but We prefer to use a composition of fish glue and silver nitrate, having from twenty per cent. to forty per cent. of the latter. The glue is in the forni of a thin solution so as to spread readily over the area 5, and the silver nitrate is incorporated with the glue before it is applied. After application the ticket is allowed to dry and is then ready for use.

The face of the body portion 1 contains the ordinary data which indicates the name of the railroad, the starting point, the place of destination, etc. The face of the stub portion contains a table giving the names of the months, as shown at 6, letters indicating the days of the week,'as'shown at 7, numbers indicating the' week of the month, as shown at 8, and letters indicating' forenoon and afternoon, as shown at 9.

The reverse side of the body portion 1 may contain baggage regulations, as shown at 11, and a table which corresponds in every particular to the table on the face of the stub portion so that when the latter is folded on the back of the ticket, i. e. over on the table shown in Fig. 2, then the table on the stub portion will be in registration with the table on the body portion so that when any data on the stub is. punched, the same data will be punched on the body portion. The reverse ortion of the stub may contain any suita le data or directions, as shown From the foregoing description of the various parts of the device the operation thereof may be readily understood. Let us assume that a party purchases the ticket on We`dnesday, February 13, 1918. After the ticket has been filled out in the usual manner by writing in the names of the purchaser, his destination, etc., he meistens his finger or thumb, slightly, and makes an imprint on the sensitized area 5, this imprint extending on either side of the scored line 3 as shown at 13 in Fig. 2. The stub is now folded over on the reverse side of the ticket and the ticket is punched to indicate the month, and the second Wednesday of the month on that portion of the stub which indicates the forenoon.

The stub is now detached along the scored line. If occasion should arise for identifying the original purchaser or the user of the ticket, the stub and the body portion may be matched by the conductor, as forcin-v stance, where the passenger has retained the body portion and the conductor the stub portion, or vice versa, or Where the stub has been sent to the auditors office and the body portion was subsequently lreturned, the original purchaser may easily prove his purchase of the ticket by means of his finger print, which should of course, agree with the two matched portions showing the original finger print. The older the print becomes, the better and plainer it is, owing to the slow oxidization of the silver nitrate.

lt will thus be seen that the scored line and the portions on either side thereof have adouble function, for it permits these portions to be used for finger print identification and for registration with the corresponding parts on the body portion which may be simultaneously punched.

While We have shown a railroad ticket as embodying our invention, it should be understood that this is for the purpose of illustration only, and that any document of a similar sort having a body portion and a stub and means for finger print identification comes within the scope of our invention.

What we claim is:

A ticket, comprising abody portion and a stub, the reverse face of said body portion having a table for indicating dates, and the obverse face of the stub having a similar table, said stub being foldable on said body portion to bring similar parts of the two tables into registration, and a sensitized coating on the reverse face of the ticket, and covering an area on the body portion and the stub through which said folding line passes, said sensitized area being adapted to take a thumb or finger print.

In testimony whereof we have affixed our signatures.

GLENN A. SMILEY. GR-VALL SMILEY. 

